VK Agri launches India's first pvt sector afforestation drive

Offline stalls for the scheme to buy the tree and its space for Rs 1,500 for four years, until it bears fruit, have been a sellout. The management is planning to reach out to a larger audience worldwide through the Internet. A larger customer base may mean more greenery for Uttarakhand, while the company may not be saddled with too many costs for the project.

VK Agri has come up with a unique scheme. The company does not make too much money per SKU but it does achieve what no other company has been able to do. One, it sources the cost of trees adding to the greenery of the already beautiful Uttarakhand state from the people in general all over the world. Two, it allows the common urban public to participate in a greening project from its inception to its finish line when the tree bears fruit, with very little capital participation.

This could turn out to be unique if the numbers fall into place online. However, the company has already proved its mettle in its offline avatar. The company's core competence comes from its directors , who are qualified in marketing and agricultural science. This has led to the company being engaged in production and packaging of seeds and selling of the same.

This has resulted in a huge database with the company with inroads into the rural community and also the urban part of their supply chain mechanism. Where this afforestation pogramme scores over other programmes is when it gets hard core packaged cheese and pre-sliced factory produced bread eating city dwellers with nine to five jobs to invest in a tree and in doing so investing in a greener environment.

This has not been done by any other company so far. Till date, some companies in the Canada and Europe are into something similar but they are more charitable than a business proposition. Charity carries the burden of perception of being inefficient and also ineffective . Charity also carries the burden of being a fund raiser from very rich people.

The kind of picture that springs to mind is that of a private yatch on which barons and dukes are holding their trophy wives with one hand and bidding for a sapling with the other hand raised to the sky, punching a flute glass into the cosmos in the process. On the other hand, this scheme allows the harried husband, plagued with the wife's shopping to mosey over and invest in a tree for his son to bear fruit in five years. Part of the fruit will be sent to the investor and a good part is going to be kept with the company to be sold off for proceeds.

After a while, even the wood is to be sold off. If this scheme takes off to new heights then deforestation will be a thing of the past and land will have another avenue for piling on returns. Right now, the company is only dealing with a few species. They are: sandal, mango and pear. Later it may introduce many more species if the customer demands it.

The company also plans to introduce a social networking angle to this site. Many couples may meet over a single tree that they have chosen to sponsor. A sweet young thing in Indirapuram, Ghaziabad may find that her heart has been taken over by a straight talking hunk from Mahavir Enclave, Dwarka. Other things may even work out transnational with couples over the oceans meeting over saplings. Slowly their love will grow keeping in line with the growth of the sapling.